This past spring, I took two classes–HTML and Dreamweaver. Both were online classes–I had never taken an online class before and was pleasantly surprised at how much I learned without physically being in the classroom.

As a marketing professional, I used the Web quite extensively to market products as it is a powerful and cost-efficient way to reach a broad audience. I wanted to take my experience one step further and learn how a Web page is created. Just like knitting where the instructions look like another language, HTML is a computer language with its own set of instructions. In the 6-week class, I learned the fundamentals of Web design, planned the content, structure of my Web site and created pages with backgrounds, tables, hot buttons and animations. I even got more insight into search engine listings.

The other class I took was Dreamweaver which is an industry-standard Web design program. This class required purchasing Dreamweaver software. The challenge that I had was that I purchased the latest version of Dreamweaver (I mean, why would I buy an older version), but the course material was written for Dreamweaver 8. I’d say about 80% was still valid, but there were a lot of parts that I skipped because it was not relevant with the newer version.

Anyway, in this class, I learned how to create documents and work with text, images, links, tables and multimedia files. I learned that there are 5 primary questions to guarantee success for any Web site project:

1) What is the primary objective of my site?

2) Who is the intended audience?

3) How will visitors be viewing the site?

4) How should visitors navigate my site?

5) What will the site look like?

I highly recommend these classes for anyone interested in creating their own Web site!

My first blog was on Xanga.com. For a long time it was great, but eventually I wanted something a little bit more mature and migrated over to Blogger. Blogger lasted me for awhile as well but again, I wanted something with more “oomph.” After trying out a handful of different blogging services, I settled on Wordpress and started craftycathy.wordpress.com. It gave me exactly what I needed: pages, various themes, easy posting and editing– essentially a website without needing to code!

When Mary and I started talking about building a website for embe, I knew Wordpress was the way to go. Although I hadn’t used Wordpress.org before, I was ready to leap right in. It had a higher learning curve then I expected but once I found the right theme for embe, everything began to fall into place.

What I really love about Wordpress.org is the sheer amount of plug-ins that are available. There are so many talented people sharing their work, and I wanted to give them a little shout-out. embeshop.com wouldn’t look the way it does without their plug-in.

embe's homepage slideshow

Our homepage slideshow uses a few plug-ins but the main one is Featurific. Featurific creates a slideshow using blog posts to highlight stories or in our case our products. It’s easy to use and allows you to select which stories by category or by post ID. There are a dozen or so themes to choose from. embe uses the “Time.com (transparent)” theme but I did make a few tweaks to the theme code to make it fit with embe’s site.

There are two additional plug-ins I used in order to make Featurific play nice with where and how I wanted it to be displayed.

The first is Exec-PHP. This plug-in executes <?php?> code in  your posts, pages and text widgets. The Featurific code is in php and Wordpress edits the code to remove php tags when the page is saved.

The second is Deactivate visual editor. This plug-in deactivates the visual editor for specific pages or posts. While you have the option to disable the visual editor for all pages/posts in Wordpress, it’s not very convenient to have to change that setting to make edits to the homepage and then switch it back to edit the other pages.

Stay tuned for the next installment of plug-in shout-outs!

Having been a mother for a little over a year, I learned very quickly that mother/parenthood is all about making sacrifices. And boy did I sacrifice my body! I gained almost 30 pounds with my pregnancy and have since worked my way back into my pre-pregnancy weight. Ironically, I actually fit my clothes better post-baby, but I also lost a lot of muscle tone.

P90X - YogaX

The other day, my son Isaac lifted my shirt up and patted my soft, jiggly belly (what Bridget Jones would call “wobbly bits” ) and it was then that I decided that I really need to tone up. So, I recently started doing the P90X workout again–it’s a series of workout DVDs with trainer Tony Horton. His workouts are about muscle confusion–switching from one area of the body to another so that your body doesn’t get used to one routine and therefore plateauing and not getting better results.

I’m on day 24 and am feeling really good. There are days that I almost talk myself into skipping, but I try to remember the increased energy and stamina I have after my workout. And with a 13-month old who is now walking, I need all the energy I can get!

A lot of people are surprised to learn that I’m a self-taught knitter or that I knit at all! It all started when I got married and discovered a love for HGTV. I remember watching a show called “crafters from coast to coast” and thinking that it would be fun to pick up a crafting hobby.

I initially learned from a “Learn to Knit” kit I picked up at Michaels. While the book was helpful in learning the basic techniques of casting on, knitting and purling I found I needed more guidance then what the book could provide if I wanted to make more than potholders. Not knowing anyone who knitted and being an IT professional, I turned to–you guessed it–the Internet!

One of the firsts websites I came across was knittinghelp.com. What drew me in were the free instructional videos. They were just the thing I needed to learn more advanced stitches, like increasing and decreasing! (It’s funny to hear myself say that increasing and decreasing were considered advanced but to me each new technique is advanced!) Even now, four years later, I return time and time again to KnittingHelp for a refresher on a technique I hadn’t used in awhile or for something new.

Another site I use is knittingdaily.com. They just recently started posting how-to videos and some of my favorites are how to knit joggless stripes in the round and tubular cast on. The knittingdaily blog also is a wealth of information. It’s taught me how to take my body measurememtnts to ensure that a sweater will fit, how to knit lace, and different types of cast-ons and cast-offs.

I’ve come a long way since my potholder days and I owe it to all the great online knitting websites. Now that I’ve given out my secret, you can start knitting now too!

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with KnittingHelp and KnittingDaily, nor did they pay me to say such great things. KnittingDaily image from knittingdaily.com

Cathy and I would like to thank everyone for your overwhelming show of support for our business venture! We’ve received the most wonderful emails and comments from friends, family and even a new customer! We also received some great suggestions and product ideas so please keep them coming!

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If your child is like mine, he receives many gifts that–I’ll be honest with you–don’t get a lot of mileage. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the thought and the gift itself, but at the end of the day, he loses interest in it. And then it takes up space and starts to collect dust. (Hmmm, I hope I didn’t just talk Isaac out of some presents come Christmas time!).

When I create things, not only do I go for aesthetics, I think about its usefulness. “Will the recipient get a lot of use out of this?” is what I’m constantly asking myself. I find inspiration in its purpose. Can it do more and last longer than a toy off the shelf? More importantly, will he/she (and the parents) really enjoy it months (and even years) afterwards?

Just because something is practical doesn’t mean it can’t also be pretty. I like to create things for my customers that I would be proud to have displayed in my own home. For instance, we have Isaac’s growth chart hanging in the kitchen. He’s too young to understand what it is right now, but I can tell that he is attracted by the colors and textures. The colors are nice and bright but not tacky . It’s like a work of art, if I say so myself!

So in a world full of gadgets and gizmos, I like to create pretty and practical gifts while preserving the art of handmade goods that can be enjoyed without having to buy batteries for it.

Our neck warmers are perfect during the cooler weather or in the freezer section at the store! yep

Express your little one’s soon-to-be athletic abilities with our “too cute” sneaker booties! yo

Cathy and I are very excited to unveil embe, our online shop offering unique, handmade gifts for babies and tots! I remember one day back in May when we took the kids on their first official playdate, the idea came up to start something together. At first, I thought “it’s just an idea” but after giving it some thought, I realized that there was something there. During our first meeting, we both shared our ideas for what we could call our shop, and we both came up with embe on our own. Now, talk about coincidence!

The months leading up to our launch can be described as exciting, filled with late nights, inspiring, a learning experience, fun, and fulfilling. Starting a business is a lot of hard work but so rewarding in the process. We are both passionate about being mothers and being creative. embe allows us to combine both passions, and we hope that you join us on our creative and parenting journeys by reading our blogs and enjoying our creations for the little ones in your life!

Our fun, colorful growth charts are a great way to track how tall your child grows. yay